Journal of Science Teacher Education

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Introducing Pre-Service Math and Biology Teachers

to Physics PCK

Julio Benegas & Myriam Villegas

To cite this article: Julio Benegas & Myriam Villegas (2021): Introducing Pre-Service
Math and Biology Teachers to Physics PCK, Journal of Science Teacher Education, DOI:
10.1080/1046560X.2021.1909809

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1046560X.2021.1909809

Published online: 28 May 2021.

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JOURNAL OF SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/1046560X.2021.1909809

Introducing Pre-Service Math and Biology Teachers to

Physics PCK
a,b a,c
Julio Benegas and Myriam Villegas
a
Physics Department, Fac. de Ciencias Físico-Matemáticas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de San Luis, San
Luis, Argentina; bInstituto de Matemática Aplicada San Luis (IMASL) CONICET-Universidad Nacional de San Luis,
San Luis, Argentina; cInstituto de Física Aplicada San Luis (INFAP) CONICET-Universidad Nacional de San Luis,
San Luis, Argentina

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This work reports a classroom experience of a general physics course Pedagogical content
designed to foster also the initiation of preservice mathematics and knowledge; active learning;
biology teachers to physics pedagogical content knowledge. To mod­ general physics; conceptual
knowledge
ify the conceptions that these students have about teaching and
learning, the course was taught using different active learning instruc­
tional strategies, making at the same time students explicitly aware of
their names, objectives, and main characteristics. Degree of knowl­
edge and value of specific active learning activities by these students
were measured with three opinion surveys answered by students at
the same time they took the three written exams necessary to pass the
course. Learning of physics principles was monitored by pre and post
instruction application of a general physics multiple-choice test.
Results indicate that these students were not only able to identify all
teaching strategies but that they value them very highly, with more
than 80% of the answers distributed in the two highest rating cate­
gories. Opinion and value of the small group work were also very high,
increasing with time along the course. When asked to sketch a plan to
teach 11th-grade students a physics topic covered in that part of the
course, almost all participants proposed to use active learning activ­
ities as well as different information and communication technologies.
It was also found that conceptual learning of the physics subjects
covered in this course was quite satisfactory with high normalized
gains, characteristics of active learning instruction. Further work is
suggested to confirm these results with appropriate experiments.

Introduction
According to a rather recent Ibero-American study (Benegas et al., 2009, 2010), conceptual
knowledge of the fundamental physics laws seems to be very poor at the end of high school
instruction in several Ibero American countries. This study showed that only 7% of more
than 3,000 first-year science and engineering university students, attending seven univer­
sities in five different countries, have a sound conceptual knowledge of Coulomb´s law. The
study of these recent high school graduates found similarly disappointing results in all other
tested topics, including free-fall motion, Newton´s laws, and simple DC electric circuits, all
basic concepts included in the standard high school physics curricula of all participating

CONTACT Julio Benegas jbenegas@unsl.edu.ar; jcbenegas@gmail.com Physics Department, Fac. de Ciencias Físico-
Matemáticas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de San Luis, San Luis 5700, Argentina.
© 2021 Association for Science Teacher Education
2 J. BENEGAS AND M. VILLEGAS

countries. These results can be taken as a confirmation but also as a consequence of the very
poor knowledge of basic science and mathematics of middle school students, as system­
atically pointed out by the PISA evaluations (OECD, 2018). These international studies also
showed that the participating Latin American countries perform at the very bottom of the
world-wide performance scale. Besides being a central factor in the very high levels of
students´ failure, particularly in the first year of university programs of science and
engineering, this very low degree of scientific understanding is a negative factor for a very
much needed socio-economic development.
Paradoxically, this very poor learning happens in a time in which physics education
research is showing, time and again, fantastic advances in the understanding of student´s
learning difficulties (McDermott & Redish, 1999), and the consequent development of
very successful instructional strategies, particularly in the approach identified as active
learning of physics (Freeman et al., 2014; Meltzer & Thornton, 2012). Active-learning
(AL) instructional methods are ultimately intended to give students a solid conceptual
foundation of physics by continuously engaging them in their process of learning through
hands-on, minds-on activities and small groups and class discussions, fostering higher
order thinking and group work as opposed to passively listening to an expert, the
traditional teaching approach (Freeman et al., 2014). This instructional approach, which
has been developed since the ‘80s of the last century, is based on the knowledge base of
students´ alternative models and learning difficulties provided by physics education
research (PER), which at this time, encompass almost every subject of school physics
(McDermott & Redish, 1999). This approach to educational research provides a solid
scientific knowledge that has been used to develop an ever-increasing number of active-
learning instructional strategies, whose classroom applications resulted in notable
advances in students´ learning outcomes (Hake, 1998; Von Korff et al., 2016). The
fundamental question is why, if physics education research is continually producing
advances in students´ learnings, the conceptual knowledge of the assessed
Iberoamerican high school graduates is so poor. It seems that the results of educational
research are not being translated into the school system. This problem, which seems to be
common to many education systems, usually identifies teacher preparation as one of the
more important factors affecting students´ learning (Etkina, 2010; Milner-Bolotin, 2018;
Park et al., 2011) and, therefore, adequate teacher education has been identified as a very
basic condition for the success of science education reforms (Milner-Bolotin, 2018; NRC,
2013). These contributions made clear that teachers should not only have a solid knowl­
edge of the of physics laws and methods (content knowledge, hereafter CK), and how
students learn (pedagogical knowledge, PK), but, very importantly, also about the learning
difficulties of every specific subject of the physics curriculum and about the strategies and
measuring instruments that have been scientifically developed to deal with these learning
obstacles. This third type of knowledge, identified by Shulman (1987) as pedagogical
content knowledge (PCK), is considered by some authors at the interphase of content
knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. In this approach, it is understood that PCK is the
professional knowledge needed to teach effectively a given science and that it is different
for every subject matter (physics, biology, and so on). As any scientific knowledge, PCK
can be acquired through instruction and, in a constructivist framework, school learning of
PCK should be affected by the previous experiences and knowledge that every student
(the pre-service teachers in this case) brings to the classroom.
 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION 3

The regional situation is even more complex since a seemingly common characteristic of
the Iberoamerican education systems surveyed by Benegas et al. (2009, 2010) is that pre-
university physics is taught not only by specialized physics teachers but, very often, by
teachers of other sciences and mathematics, a condition that seems to affect also education
systems of more developed countries (Meltzer et al., 2013; Ogodo, 2019). While this is
almost naturally so in middle school, where physics is usually taught in general science
courses integrated with other sciences (notable biology and chemistry), it is also a very usual
situation at the high school level, where physics is taught in single-science courses, sepa­
rated from the other experimental sciences. Therefore, to improve the teaching of physics, it
is not sufficient to properly prepare pre-service physics teachers, but it seems also necessary
to provide pre-service biology and mathematics teachers with some basis of physics PCK.
While a sound formative process of physics teachers requires special courses to master
physics PCK (Etkina, 2010; McDermott, 1990), these types of courses are not usually taken
by pre-service teachers of other sciences and mathematics. As a practical alternative, this
work proposes to initiate prospective math and biology pre-service teachers in physics PCK
through their participation in a general physics course. To that end the course was taught
using active learning strategies, making at the same time students explicitly aware of the
teaching methodologies being used. The basic assumption is that participation in a physics
course that uses different active learning instructional strategies, together with the explicit
description of their names and characteristics, should affect these pre-service teachers´
conceptions about the teaching and learning of physics. The underlying position is that the
very first step toward understanding a process is to be able to name it, hopefully identifying
their main characteristics (Keene & Zimmermann, 1997). In this framework, the present
work should be seen as a first initiative to shift these students´ conceptions away from the
traditional, teacher-centered, model of instruction (they vastly experienced up to now),
toward a constructivist approach.

Conceptual framework
The present work is based, as most educational initiatives in present times, upon the
constructivist learning theory (Von Glasersfeld, 1993). In this approach, knowledge is not
directly transmitted from teacher to student but constructed within students´ minds
because of the interaction between what they know and believe, and the phenomena,
ideas, and concepts presented by instruction. In this framework, learning occurs only if
students are actively engaged in personal and social processes designed to integrate the new
knowledge into their preexisting mental models of the world.
Coherently, in the present work, this constructivist approach is applied to the two
learning objectives: the learning of physics by prospective math and biology teachers and,
concurrently, their initiation to physics PCK.
Based on wide experimental and classroom evidence (Hake, 1998; Redish & Steinberg,
1999; Von Korff et al., 2016), this physics course was designed upon the active learning
approach, utilizing as frequent as possible AL instructional strategies available in the local
language, or that could easily be adapted for use in the local education system. At this point,
it is important to note that the active learning methodologies referred throughout this work
are explicitly based upon sound research in the learning and teaching of physics, which have
been applied to the design of successful classroom and laboratory activities (Meltzer &
4 J. BENEGAS AND M. VILLEGAS

Thornton, 2012; Singh, 2014). In this process, students are usually required to express their
thinking to their peers and teacher, a social interaction aimed at finding an agreement on
how to explain a given physical situation.
At this point, it is important to identify in more detail what is meant by PCK, what are its
constituents, and how it can be acquired by prospective science and math teachers.
Grossman (1990), for instance, considered four central components of PCK: knowledge
and beliefs about the purposes for teaching a subject, knowledge of students’ understanding,
conceptions, and misconceptions of particular topics in a subject matter, knowledge of
curriculum and curriculum materials and knowledge of instructional strategies and repre­
sentations for teaching particular topics. This position was enlarged by Park and Oliver
(2008) by including “knowledge of assessment of student understanding” as a fundamental
constituent of teachers´ PCK. Along these lines, Magnusson et al. (1999) summarized that
science´ teachers PCK is made up of the following five factors: orientation to teaching,
knowledge of curricula, knowledge of student prior understanding, potential learning
difficulties, knowledge of successful instructional strategies and knowledge of assessment.
Etkina (2010) shows how these five aspects of PCK relate to the teaching of physics. In
particular, she relates orientation to science teaching with the beliefs regarding the role of
students’ prior knowledge in their learning, the purpose of problem-solving, the role of
experiments, and what motivates students in the classroom. Knowledge of curricula regards
the knowledge of the sequence of topics that allows a student to build an understanding of
a new concept or skill on what she or he already knows. Knowledge of students’ prior
understanding and potential difficulties regards knowledge of students’ pre-instruction
ideas and how they could affect the construction of a new concept. Knowledge of difficulties
students may have interpreting physics language that is different from everyday language.
Fundamental for teachers’ professional work is their knowledge of successful instructional
strategies, which refers to the recognition of methods or specific activity sequences that
better promote student learning. This knowledge is necessary to develop the ability to
choose the most productive strategy or to modify a strategy for a particular group of
students. The last contribution, knowledge of assessment, includes the knowledge of ways
to assess student conceptual understanding, problem-solving and general scientific abilities;
knowledge of how to help students self-assess their work, and how to engage them in
a meaningful reflection. A final point regards the systematic use of small group work,
a social learning resource found at the very base of most active learning instructional
methodologies, even from the very beginning of the active learning approach (Laws,
1997). Being social learning one of the important differences between traditional and active
learning instruction, we consider that its full acceptance, use and value by prospective
teachers are mandatory steps toward changing how they perceive science teaching.
From the above, it is clear that physics PCK is a complex and highly developed knowl­
edge that has evolved with distinctive features as a new branch of science, achieving
important advances thanks to the participation of scientists from distinct, but complemen­
tary disciplines, notably from physics departments, where it has grown as a new area of
research (McDermott, 1991). As a result of this research, investigators have pointed out the
need for special instruction for physics teachers (McDermott, 1990). From a constructivist
standpoint, teachers´ PCK should be developed not only through this type of special courses
but also through the coherent teaching of the physics courses taken by the prospective
teachers, since that instruction will determine their (mis)conceptions about teaching and
 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION 5

learning. Therefore, subjecting pre-service teachers to active learning physics instruction

should not only provide them with better content knowledge but, very importantly,
a different perception of the learning process. In this line of reasoning, and for the present
work, the teacher´s PCK should be thought of as a complement of personal and canonical
PCK (Smith & Banilower, 2012; S. Smith et al., 2018). In this position, canonical PCK is the
knowledge substantiated, as pointed out above, by systematic educational research. As such
it can be acquired through special instruction and shared and applied by any teacher.
Personal PCK, on the other hand, builds upon personal experiences, beliefs, and orienta­
tions about the teaching and learning processes, which begins as a student and builds up
through professional practice. In this framework, all teachers have personal PCK, whether
tacit or explicit, but only those teachers subjected to special instruction attain canoni­
cal PCK.
In this framework, the central question of this work is whether pre-service biology and
mathematic teachers can acquire some features of physics PCK through their participation
in a general physics course. Of all PCK features described above, taking into account the
limitations of this course, we specifically aim to introduce these pre-service teachers to the
knowledge of successful teaching strategies and to what extent they can identify and value
those used in this general physics course. Therefore, the following research questions are
considered:

(1) Are pre-service math and biology students able to identify the active learning
instructional strategies used in the general physics course?
(2) What instructional methodologies do they consider more beneficial for their con­
ceptual understanding of physics?
(3) To what extent do pre-service math and biology teachers propose the use of active
learning activities/teaching strategies when asked to sketch a plan to teach
a particular subject of the physics curricula?

Methods
This work proposes to initiate physics pedagogical content knowledge of prospective math
and biology teachers through their participation in a general physics course.
The context of this study precluded the use of a comparison or control group, therefore
a simple pre-experimental design was implemented, in which a group of institutionally
determined pre-service math and biology teachers (Nmath = 17, Nbiol = 3; 30% male, 70%
female) following a general physics course were subjected to an experimental teaching
approach (the experimental treatment). The nature and evolution of certain aspects of
physics PCK were monitored with three opinion surveys, answered by students at the same
time they had to take the three exams required to pass the course.
Table 1 shows the distribution of teaching and evaluation activities along the course. The
first part (“periods”) was dedicated to force and motion concepts, the middle part of the
course to electricity, magnetism, fluids, and simple DC electric circuits, two important
applications for high school physics. The last period was dedicated to waves, with applica­
tions to sound and physical optics, and to geometrical optics. At the end of each period,
institutional evaluations (“partial” exams) were carried out and students fulfilled the
corresponding opinion surveys.
 6
J. BENEGAS AND M. VILLEGAS

Table 1. Time distribution (periods) of the different course activities. Evaluation includes institutional evaluations (partial exams), conceptual content evaluation
(FCI and GPT) and students´ surveys. Top line also includes period duration, in weeks. Total course duration: 14 weeks.
Term 1st Period (5 weeks) 2nd Period (5 weeks) 3rd Period (4 weeks)
Activity Evaluation Physics content Evaluation Physics content Evaluation Physics content Evaluation
- GPT pretest - Linear kinematics −1st Partial Exam - Work and Energy −2nd Partial Exam - Waves −3rd Partial Exam
- Newton´s Laws - FCI - Fluids - 2nd Student Survey - Sound - GPT posttest
- 2D motion -1st Student Survey - Electricity & Magnetism - Geometri- cal & -3rd Student Survey
- DC electric circuits Physical Optics
 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION 7

Conceptual content (physics) knowledge was measured with two multiple-choice tests,
the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) (Hestenes et al., 1992) and the General Physics Test
(GPT) described below. FCI was given to students at the end of the first period, while the
GPT was given as a pretest, at the beginning of instruction, and as a posttest, at the end of
the course. Due to the limitations of this research design, the conclusions should be taken as
indicative of possible causal effects and, if it seems adequate, also as source material to plan
appropriate experiments.

A teaching model for a general physics course for pre-service math and biology
teachers
This course had two different objectives: those related to the learning of physical laws (the
institutional objective) and those concerned with some features of physics PCK that could
be acquired by prospective biology and math teachers. While the present work is, in
principle, concerned with the second objective, it has been shown (Kind, 2009) that
possession of a sound specific CK through academic training, is a necessary condition to
provide future teachers with a secure knowledge base from which to develop effective
teaching skills. For the above reasons it is important to describe the teaching approach in
some detail, as well as the instruments used to measure content knowledge.
Planning of this course was made under the assumption that conceptual knowledge of
physics, the institutional objective of this algebra-based general physics course for prospec­
tive math and biology teachers, would be fulfilled if students acquired the fundamental
physics concepts simply and understandably, connecting them to everyday life phenomena.
The emphasis on real life applications and on those subjects usually taught at the pre-
university level resulted in extra time dedicated to important applications, such as fluid
statics and dynamics and DC circuits. As Table 1 indicates, this extensive subject content
has to be satisfied in a 14 weeks term. Consequently, a characteristic of this course was that
each week the central subject of the course changed, sometimes abruptly. The course was
taught following a flipped-classroom approach (Bergmann & Sams, 2012), integrated with
different active learning instructional methodologies. Being a course for future biology and
math teachers who, more often than not, will have to teach physics topics, it was proposed
that these instructional methodologies were made explicit to students. To that end, a short
introduction was provided for the first time each methodology was used. This information
was also offered on the course website. Research-based teaching strategies used in this
course included Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILD) (Sokoloff & Thornton, 2004),
Tutorials in Introductory Physics (Tutorials) (McDermott et al., 2002), Peer Instruction
(PI) (Mazur, 1997) and the problem-solving algorithm GOAL (Beichner et al., 2006) which
was used to solve Context Rich problems (Heller & Heller, 1999). Table 2 shows in detail
which learning activities, corresponding to the instructional strategies Tutorials and ILD,
were used in this course. Structured Tutorials learning activities included, for each topic, an
integrated system of Tutorial pretest, worksheet, and home assignment. Students worked
out Tutorials pretests and home assignments before and after the in-class activity, where the
Tutorial worksheet was resolved by students working in collaborative groups of three or
four members. ILD worksheets (prediction and result sheets) consist of a series of 5 to 8
sequenced Demonstrations, developed to foster an in-depth conceptual comprehension of
a subject. They were implemented following the recommended (Sokoloff & Thornton,
8 J. BENEGAS AND M. VILLEGAS

Table 2. Distribution of active-learning structured activities corresponding to the teaching strategies

tutorials for introductory Physics, Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILD) and computer simulations.
Periods as in Table 1.
Teaching
Strategy Activities 1st period Activities 2nd period Activities 3rd period
Tutorials - Velocity - Work and work-energy theorem - Superposition and reflection of
- Acceleration in 1D - Charge pulses.
- Forces - A model for Electric Circuits - Two-source interference.
- Newton´s 2nd and 3rd - Convex Lenses
laws
ILD - Kinematics I- human - Energy of a Cart on a ramp. No ILD activity
motion. - Fluid Statics
- Kinematics II- Motion of - Series and Parallel Circuits
carts.
- Newton´s 1st &2nd Laws.
- Newton´s 3rd Law.
- Projectile Motion.
Simulations No Simulation activity - Energy in the skate park. - Wave interference.
- Density, Buoyancy, and Force - Lenses virtual lab
Diagrams.
- DC electric circuits

2004) eight-step procedure based upon peers´ interaction in small groups and full class
discussions. Full description of active-learning teaching methodologies, as well as their
pedagogical bases, are presented and discussed in the book by Redish (2003).
Table 2 also includes, as active-learning structured activities, PhET simulation home­
work assignments which, written in a tutorial form, were designed to apply concepts in
a different learning environment. To foster social learning, simulation homework assign­
ments were assigned to groups of two students. Simulation worksheets used in these
assignments usually followed from the active-learning teaching resources provided by the
PhET simulations group at the University of Colorado (PhET, 2019). It is noted that PhET
simulations, and related teaching material, include math and biology applications at null
cost and in the local language, a plus for the future professional life of these pre-service
teachers.
The in-class course work included three two-hour weekly activities. A typical week began
with a two-hour lecture time, with the first hour dedicated to the discussion of the videos
and related material proposed by the flipped-classroom approach basic to this course. In our
implementation of the flipped-class, we chose to systematically use videos and learning
material offered by the Khan Academy institution because there is a Spanish version (Khan
Academy, 2019) of much of the Khan Academy material and also because their material is
not only limited to physics but also the teaching of other subjects, notably high school
mathematics. Therefore, becoming familiar with this site should be useful for these students
´ future professional life. During this first half of the lecture, extensive use of Peer
Instruction was done to foster class discussions of the main conceptual aspects of each
subject. Familiarity with PI was considered very important for these students, not only
because of its proven efficiency and applications to other sciences and math (Lucas, 2009),
but also because it is grounded on similar learning principles and classroom dynamics as
other successful teaching strategies such as Think, pair, share (Afthina, Mardiyana &
Pramudya, 2017; M. K. Smith et al., 2009).
 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION 9

The second hour of the lecture time was dedicated to teaching an ILD or to workout simple
applications and/or solving problems, with students working in small groups. In this approach,
ILD´s were mainly used to integrate concepts and to make sure that the fundamentals concepts
of each subject underwent the class discussions basic to this methodology. The second two-hour
meeting of each week was usually dedicated to Tutorials, although about 1/3 of the weeks we
used this time for laboratory work. A typical week finished with a two-hour problem–solving
session, with students working in small groups (3–4 members) to solve context-rich problems
following the GOAL problem-solving strategy. The GOAL strategy is a four-step problem–
solving (PS) approach (Beichner et al., 2006): Gather information, Organize an approach to
solving the problem, Analyze the problem, and Learn from your efforts. The last step is
a metacognitive stage where students compare the obtained solution with their predictions
and reflect on what they have learned in the process of solving that problem. Each small group
was assigned a different problem and given time to solve it collaboratively, registering the four
solution steps on small whiteboards. In the last 20–25 minutes of class time members of every
group explained their problem solution to the whole class in a 3-minutes microlesson discussing
the PS details aided by their whiteboards. After discussion, each group has to take a picture of the
whiteboard with its solution and upload it to the WhatsApp class-group. In this way, every
interested student could work out, after class, a personal solution to any problem and compare
his/her solution with the solutions uploaded to the WhatsApp site.
Besides providing a knowledge base to facilitate future in-service professional develop­
ment in the area of physics teaching, we consider that explicitly dealing with the different
active-learning methodologies used in this general physics course should contribute to
students´ (personal) PCK not only regarding physics teaching but that of other sciences as
well, because some of the methodologies and resources, such us Peer Instruction and the
GOAL problem-solving approach can be readily used to foster active learning of mathematics
and other experimental sciences. Similar arguments follow for educational videos and other
web learning materials used in the flipped-classroom approach followed in this course.

Evaluation of pedagogical content knowledge: the opinion survey (OS)

The degree of awareness and student perception of physics pedagogical content knowledge
was measured with three opinion surveys, answered by students at the same time they took
the partial exams. The subjects of the first exam (and survey) included force and motion
concepts, the second included work, energy, fluids, electricity and electric circuits, while the
last exam and survey covered the concepts of wave propagation and interference (with
applications to sound and light), and geometrical optics. The main aim of these surveys was
to evaluate students´ degree of satisfaction, beliefs, and opinions about the active learning
strategies used by instruction in the different activities of the course.
The surveys had two types of questions: a first set, of about 25 questions, was aimed at
knowing students´ opinions about how much individual classroom activities contributed to
their conceptual learning. They were answered using a Likert scale with five possibilities:
very much, normal, little, nothing, and negative to the question: “In teaching motion and
forces we used different instructional strategies and resources, some of them corresponding
to active learning, how much each of the following activities contributed to your under­
standing of these subjects?” (for the first survey, physics subject changed in the other
surveys). The “negative” option was included to check if, in the students´ view, a given
10 J. BENEGAS AND M. VILLEGAS

activity cause confusion or difficulties in students´ learning. This part was complemented
with six questions aimed at knowing students´ opinions regarding small group work, using
the same Likert-style scale as answer options. Students were asked to rate how small-group
work improved their conceptual understanding, oral ability, reasoning capability, their
ability for group work, its contribution to the efficiency of each student´s work, and finally
if these types of activities were a stimulus to work in small groups.
The second part of the surveys consisted of seven open-ended questions aimed at
knowing students´ opinion related to the influence of previous knowledge of math and
physics on their learning, the instructional strategy they considered most beneficial for their
conceptual understanding, which one they enjoyed most if they feel they had actively
participated in their learning process and also if, after instruction, they understood better
the physics of everyday life. A final question asked students to sketch a teaching plan to
teach a specific subject of the material covered during that part of the course (Newton´s
Laws, for instance) to 11th-grade students.

Evaluation of content knowledge: FCI and the general physics test

To evaluate conceptual knowledge objectively, we used two different, but complementary
research-based, multiple-choice tests: the FCI and a general physics test (GPT). The latter was
originally developed for the Iberoamerican study of Benegas et al. (2009), aimed to evaluate the
basic physics knowledge of recent high school graduates. It contains items taken from well-
known tests: FCI (Items # 2,15, 25 & 28, dealing with 2D motion, the equilibrium of forces in
constant velocity linear motion and Newton´s 3rd Law), Conceptual Survey of Electricity and
Magnetism, (CSEM) (Maloney et al., 2001; Items # 3, 4 & 5, dealing with Coulomb´s Law), and
from the Determining and Interpreting Resistive Electric Circuit Concepts Test (DIRECT)
(Engelhardt & Beichner, 2004; Items # 9 & 17, which inquire the understanding of conditions for
closing a circuit and conservation of current in a parallel circuit). The GPT test also contains
questions regarding basic mathematics and physics concepts, some of them taken from the
physics education literature. There are three questions about up and down free-fall motion
(Watts & Zylbersztajn, 1981), energy and forces on different inclines (Bliss et al., 1988;
Hierrezuelo & Montero, 1989), fluids, and geometrical optics. Math questions dealt with vectors,
graph derivatives, trigonometry, and linear functions. The use of research-based multiple-choice
tests, besides being another way of introducing these students to the results of educational
research, allows for a practical comparison of student´s knowledge with that of other students’
samples. Students´ institutional evaluation, outside the purpose of this work, was carried out
with three written exams (“partial” exams), mostly (90% of total grade) dedicated to evaluating
students´ problem-solving capabilities, complemented with a few multiple-choice conceptual
questions, whose answers had to be justified to get full credit.

Results
Physics pedagogical content knowledge
This section reports the results of the three students´ opinion surveys, centered mainly on
the knowledge, degree of satisfaction, beliefs and opinions about active learning instruc­
tional strategies and collaborative work.
 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION 11

1-knowledge of active learning instructional strategies in physics

As described in the Methods section, to inquire about some aspects of physics PCK, we used
three student surveys, each given at the time of the corresponding partial exam. The first
aspect regards how students feel that a given instructional strategy has contributed to their
understanding of the physics concepts covered over that period. The general result is that
students mostly selected the two highest choices, indicating a very high degree of students´
acceptance of the instructional activities. For that reason, Table 3 only reports the results for
the two top-rating categories: beneficial and very much beneficial to their conceptual under­
standing. The instructional strategies best valued by students were Tutorials and GOAL.
Table 3 shows that about 1/3 of the students answered that their understanding was
benefited by Tutorials and that about 60% of students thought that their understanding was
very much benefited by their use. It is furthermore noted this high rating was very similar
throughout the course, even though the subject matter changed quite substantially, from the
very concrete concepts of force and motion to the rather abstract subjects of wave inter­
ference. Similar results, with about 90% positive opinions, were obtained when students
were asked about the GOAL problem-solving strategy: about 1/3 of students found GOAL
beneficial for their understanding, but a clear majority, that increased in the last two
surveys, found this problem-solving approach very beneficial to their learnings.
Results for the PI, ILD, and simulation teaching strategies are also summarized in Table 3,
which shows the very high degree of students´ acceptance and value of these instructional
strategies throughout the course, with more than 80% of the students systematically selecting
the two top-rating categories. It should be added that no student selected the “nothing” or
“negative” options in these surveys.
As pointed out in Table 2, ILD activities were not used in the subject matters covered in
the last part of the course. Active-learning homework assignments, based on PhET simula­
tions, were introduced during the middle part of the course when covering electric circuits.

Small group work

Small group work is a fundamental tool to foster better learnings, supporting almost all AL
instructional strategies from the onset of the active learning era. For this reason, students
were asked to rate how small group work affected the following dimensions: conceptual

Table 3. Fraction (in %) of students that considered the instructional strategies (TS) beneficial (N) and
very much beneficial (A lot) for their understanding in the three-consecutive students´ surveys. The last
column in each survey indicates the sum of these two categories. Blank cells indicate that that TS was not
used in the period corresponding to that survey. TS from top to bottom: Tutorials for Introductory Physics
(Tutorials), Peer Instruction (PI), Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILD), and simulation homeworks
(Simulations).
1st survey 2nd survey 3rd survey
TS/survey N A lot N + A lot N A lot N + A lot N A lot N + A lot
Tutorials 31 63 94 31 56 87 36 64 100
PI 50 33 83 45 50 95 55 36 91
ILD’s 46 42 88 70 10 80
GOAL 42 50 92 30 70 100 32 68 100
Simulations 11 89 100 38 52 90
12 J. BENEGAS AND M. VILLEGAS

understanding, oral ability, reasoning capability, the ability for group work, efficiency of
each student´ work and finally if the activities proposed in this course were a stimulus for
working in small groups.
The overall result is the very high degree of student recognition of small group work,
with more than 90% of the students selecting the two most positive choices in the six
dimensions and showing a slight, but steady, improvement with time, going from 93% in
the first survey to 98% in the last one. Particular attention deserves the evolution of the
fraction of students selecting the highest rating (A lot) in the three opinion surveys. Figure 1
shows a relevant increase with time of this top rating opinion in all categories (except the
question related to the contribution of small-group work to conceptual understanding),
with the course average for each survey increased from 40% in the first survey to 64% in the
last one. The Figure also shows high students´ recognition of the improvement of their oral
and reasoning abilities and the development of their ability to work in small groups.

Planning a short lesson on a subject of the physics curricula

The last question in all three surveys asked students what resources and teaching
approaches they would choose if they had to teach 11th grade students a particular subject

Figure 1. Evolution of the highest students´ rating (A lot) to the question “how much small group work
improves their following capabilities/competencies”: conceptual understanding, oral ability, reasoning
capability, small group work, efficiency to finish their work, and perception of the importance of small
group work. Each set of columns, from left to right, represent each of these categories in the three
opinion surveys. The last set of columns on the right show the average values of these six categories for
each survey.
 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION 13

Table 4. Fraction (in %) of students choosing a teaching resource/activity when planning a lesson on
a particular physics topic, as reported in the three surveys. Teaching activities (TS), from left to right:
GOAL problem-solving (PS), Tutorials for Introductory Physics (Tutorials), PhET simulations (Sim), educa­
tional videos (Videos), other uses of the Internet (web), experimental activities (Exp), and everyday
applications (ED). The last two columns indicate the average number of teaching activities per student
and the ratio between the proposed active learning (AL) and traditional (TRD) instruction activities. Blank
cells indicate that students did not propose that teaching resource/activity in that survey.
Survey/TS PS Tutorials Sim Videos Web Exp ED #/student AL/TRD(%)
1st survey 20 66 33 20 40 1.9 92/8
2nd survey 20 70 40 30 40 30 2.1 90/10
3rd survey 20 85 40 25 20 1.7 90/10

of the physics covered in that part of the course (kinematics or Newton´s laws, for instance).
They were asked to provide short, very sketchy answers.
The results are summarized in Table 4, which shows that these students believe, at this
point in their studies, that simulation and videos are significant resources for teaching
physics. Another relevant feature is the relatively high fraction of students proposing experi­
mental activities and everyday applications in their planned teaching. On the contrary, very
few of them suggested the use of specific active-learning instructional strategies. Tutorials
were proposed just a few times, and similarly for the GOAL problem-solving approach. Table
4 also shows that, on the average, these students proposed the use of about two different, but
complementary, instructional strategies or resources in their teaching plans. Finally, it is
noted that, although not explicitly asked for, about 20% of the students expressed that they
would teach in the same manner they were being taught in this course, but at a slower pace.

Physics content knowledge

As described above, the institutional objective of this course regards the learning of basic
physics principles by prospective math and biology teachers. In this work conceptual
learning was measured with two complementary measuring instruments, the FCI test,
used to measure the after-instruction knowledge of force and motion concepts, and the
General Physics Test to measure students’ learning of the different subjects covered in this
course.

FCI
FCI test was given after the motion and force content of the course was finished, at the end
of the first part of the course. Results (not shown for brevity) show that post instruction
course performance is 57%. They also show that performance per item varies significantly,
going from a meager 10% for item 21 (effect of forces perpendicular to the direction of
motion) to a very satisfying 90% for item 29 (equilibrium of forces at rest). Items 5 and 23,
with performances below 30%, correspond to physical situations involving the 2D and
rotational motions, subjects that were not treated in this course due to lack of time. On the
other hand, mean performance on Items 29 and 28, which explore the comprehension of
normal forces and an application of Newton´s 3rd Law, is above 85%.
14 J. BENEGAS AND M. VILLEGAS

General math and physics knowledge

Learning of the different subjects covered in this general physics course was measured with
the GP multiple-choice test described in Methods. The test was given at the beginning
(pretest) and the end (posttest) of the course.
Pre-instruction average course performance was <pre≥ 33%, which increased to <post≥ 67%
at the end of the course, yielding a normalized gain g = 0.51 (normalized g is the ratio between
the course gain G = (<post>—<pre>) divided by the maximum possible gain (100%—<pre>)).
This pre-post instruction difference is statistically significant (p < .001), even for the relatively
modest student sample of this study. If we consider only the items taken from the FCI, CSEM
and DIRECT tests, the results are similar (<pre≥ 27%, <post≥ 67%, g = 0.55 and p < .0001).
A further analysis grouping the GPT questions according to the original test or by subjects is
shown in Figure 2, which shows that normalized learning gains of about 0.5 or higher were
attained in all physics topics, except for the questions related to force and energy of a cylinder
rolling up two different inclines where the overall gain is low due to poor results on the force
question, for which post-instruction performance was lower than before instruction.

Discussion
The main objective of this study has been to show to what extent pre-service math and
biology teachers can be initiated in physics pedagogical content knowledge through their
participation in a general physics course. To that end the course was designed using
teaching and learning activities taken from active learning methodologies for teaching
physics, such us Tutorials in Introductory Physics, Interactive Lecture Demonstrations,
Peer Instruction as well as the GOAL problem-solving approach. Course work also included
the use of PhET simulations in homework assignments designed as active learning activities.
All of them were integrated into a flipped-class approach that used videos and learning
materials taken from the Khan Academy site.
Let’s consider first the learning of the physics topics covered in this course (the physics
CK). As noted above (Kind, 2009), a satisfactory level of physics knowledge (CK) is
a mandatory condition to support future teachers in developing efficient teaching skills.
Conceptual learning of physics was measured in two complementary ways: knowledge of
force and motion concepts were measured using the FCI test while learning of all main
physics subjects covered in the course were measured with the GPT described above,
applied at the beginning and the end of the course. Post instruction course performance
(57%) is considered satisfactory for our local conditions, comparable with the post-
instruction results obtained in a mechanics course for engineering students that used
Tutorials, but clearly above the results obtained by engineering students of an equivalent
mechanics course that underwent traditional instruction (Godoy et al., 2012). As pointed
out above, FCI items with very low learning outcomes are related to force and motion in 2D,
a subject that was not covered in the present course due to lack of time. The application of
the GPT also denoted good overall learnings. Figure 2, which represents pre and post
instruction mean results, and the corresponding normalized gains, per physics subject,
shows that while the items taken from the FCI and CSEM tests have a normalized gain just
below 0.50, other physics subjects (except the incline questions) present larger normalized
gains. Improvement in the working knowledge of the tested math subjects is also
 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION 15

Figure 2. Average course performance on the general physics test before (Pre) and after (Post) instruction
and the corresponding normalized gain (x100). Items have been grouped according to the original test
from which the items were taken (FCI, DIRECT, and CSEM), or by subject matter (math, F&E on inclined
planes, free fall, and fluids). The last set of columns on the right indicate the corresponding course mean
values over the whole test.

emphasized, especially since the very satisfying normalized gain, g = 0.40, has been obtained
only as a result of student practice in the present course, i.e., without any special math
instruction taken by students in parallel with the present physics course. As noted above the
low normalized gain obtained in the force and energy in the different inclines questions is
a consequence of the failure in the conceptual understanding of forces in that context,
certainly a weak point of the present instruction. If we follow for normalized gains of this
test a criterium similar to that proposed by Hake (1998) for force and motion concepts
(measured with the FCI), we conclude that these students attained a good level of con­
ceptual learning in most of the concepts covered in this general physics course.
Regarding initiation to physics PCK, let us recall that this is a physics content course, i.e.,
not the type of special courses considered mandatory to provide physics teachers with the
necessary (canonical) PCK (Etkina, 2010; McDermott, 1990). Instead, its aim has been just
to affect student´s feelings and opinions about teaching and learning physics, i.e., to act
mainly on their personal PCK. This has been carried out through continuous exposure to
and use of different active-learning activities, adding at the same time information about the
name, objectives, and some characteristics of the corresponding instructional strategy. The
16 J. BENEGAS AND M. VILLEGAS

results of this effort were measured with three student surveys, given at the same time as
each of the three partial exams that students had to take to fulfill course requirements. The
first overall result of these surveys is the large support that these students gave to the
activities proposed by the different instructional strategies. they especially recognized the
important role of Tutorials for Introductory Physics and the problem-solving strategy
GOAL in fostering their conceptual understanding, with almost all students selecting, in
each strategy, the two more positive options in their answers. An encouraging increase with
time of student´s appraisal of the GOAL approach is also noted. A possible interpretation of
this higher evaluation in the second and third surveys is that students are becoming familiar
to the new learning environment, that includes, besides the four steps of the PS strategy,
learning to work in small groups and having to explain their solution to the whole class in
a didactic form. This last point, which includes developing the skills for making effective
presentations, has been widely noticed and valued by students in informal talks.
Students gave similar good ratings to Peer Instruction activities, which improved from
more than 80% in the first survey to more than 90% in the second and third surveys.
Interactive Lecture Demonstrations were used very often in the first and middle part of the
course, receiving also excellent opinions. A rather common feature of AL learning strategies
is the continuous practice of small group work to foster social learning. For this reason, six
questions in the surveys were aimed at knowing their feelings and opinion about working in
small groups. The results of Figure 1 show an outstanding increase with time of the highest
student´s rating, that resulted in a more than 50% increase from the first and last surveys,
with a very high final appraisal (more than 70%) in the categories contribution to reasoning
ability and development of the abilities to work in groups. Notable, especially for future
teachers, is the increase with time of their opinion respect the contribution of small group
work to the development of oral capabilities. These results suggest that continuous group
work practice makes students more aware of its benefits.
Another way to affect students´ PCK is the use of information and communication
technologies (ICT), which seems nowadays almost mandatory for the modern teaching of
physics. This course made extensive use of ICT resources, including the intensive use of the
institutional Moodle platform, a WhatsApp group, used to upload the GOAL problem
solutions, the PhET simulations, used in lectures and students´ homework assignments and
the educational videos taken from the Khan Academy site that were systematically used in
our implementation of the flipped-class approach. Students´ recognition of the learning
value of these technological resources is probably best represented by their planned teaching
since about 2/3 of them proposed to use simulations, 40% educational videos, and 20%
other web resources, as shown in Table 4. As previously noted, we regard familiarity with
the PhET and Khan Academy sites valuable resources for these prospective teachers,
because both sites have applications for the teaching of math and biology.
It seems also positive that all students, in all three surveys, manifested that they had
participated in their learning processes and that, after instruction, they understood better
the physics of everyday phenomena, important metacognitive and social aspects that justify
and validate physics instruction.
The last item in each survey asked students to sketch a plan for a short lesson, addressed
to 11th grade students, on one of the physics topics corresponding to that period of the
course. The first overall result is that most students proposed active learning activities using,
on the average, about two different, but complementary teaching strategies or resources.
 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION 17

Besides the use of technological resources noted above, an important fraction proposed to
use experiments in their teaching. On the contrary, just a few proposed to use Tutorials or
GOAL problem-solving activities. This fact seems in high contrast with the very high
appraisal expressed for these instructional strategies (Table 1). One can speculate that
these pre-service teachers, at this point in their studies, did not feel confident in using
these strategies as teachers. If this were the case, this finding points to the essential need for
special instruction for the use of these strategies, a position completely in the line with the
need for special courses for teachers advocated by, for instance, McDermott (1990) and
Etkina (2010).
Another point, perhaps anecdotical, regards the fraction of students that proposed to
teach following the same pedagogical approach they experienced in this course. Although it
could be taken as another example of the well-known maxim “they teach as they were
taught” (Mazur, 2009; Oleson & Hora, 2013), it can also be interpreted as a confirmation
that teaching (pre)conceptions of these preservice teachers have been affected by their
participation in this course, a central objective of the present teaching experience. Finally,
it is noted that, in the process of answering these surveys, students had to think in some
detail about the teaching and learning processes they were undergoing, contributing in this
manner to the nurturing of much needed reflective teachers (Perrenoud, 2006).

Conclusions
The results outlined above show that these pre-service math and biology students, while
obtaining a reasonable mastering of physics content knowledge, seem to have incorporated
some of the elements of active learning into their physics PCK. In particular, they were able
to identify the AL teaching strategies used in this general physics course, recognizing their
value for their learning of physics. Their perception and understanding of the teaching and
learning processes seem to be very positive toward active learning, with rather clear
indications that they are getting away from the paradigms of traditional, teacher-centered
instruction. These modifications of their personal PCK suggest that they should be better
prepared and willing to accept instruction about active learning methodologies, hopefully
concerned with the teaching of their own disciplines, in future actions of their pre-service
and in-service formative processes. In this regard, we note that PI, the closely related Think,
pair, share, and the GOAL problem-solving teaching strategies have been used to teach
math and other experimental sciences, a big plus to carry out institutional reform projects
regarding the teaching of STEM disciplines. Overall, these preliminary results indicate the
extra value of making pre-service teachers explicitly aware of the teaching strategies used in
disciplinary courses. Therefore, they could be considered a working example to model the
other disciplinary courses taken by pre-service science teachers, with the beneficial effects of
this synergistic approach. We believe that they could also be taken as a base material to
design appropriate follow-up experiments.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
18 J. BENEGAS AND M. VILLEGAS

Funding
This work was supported by the Universidad Nacional de San Luis [PROICO 320416].

ORCID
Julio Benegas http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6439-5107
Myriam Villegas http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3663-9012

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